(02-03-2017 02:52 PM)Szuchow Wrote: I read the title and I didn't started foaming. Guess I'm one of those rare atheists that aren't bothered with blasphemy against science.

The great irony of such ignorance is that they don't realize this line only works with religious audiences, since people who actually understand science know that the only "blasphemy against science" that you can possibly commit is to accept something--anything-- science says because some scientist said it, without questioning it vehemently.

Science is literally the process of attacking any idea that can't be conclusively demonstrated by repeatable tests. And that those tests are pretty much by definition "blasphemy against" your ideas, when performed by people who want to tear down your ideas because they're in competition with you, as is most of the scientific community with one another.

What I don't get is how they don't see that their statement is the opposite of its definition, rendering it self-defeating, akin to saying "since Capitalists are communists...".

How does one go through life on such conflicting foundations for their ideas? I honestly can't grasp it.

"Theology made no provision for evolution. The biblical authors had missed the most important revelation of all! Could it be that they were not really privy to the thoughts of God?" - E. O. Wilson

(02-03-2017 02:52 PM)Szuchow Wrote: I read the title and I didn't started foaming. Guess I'm one of those rare atheists that aren't bothered with blasphemy against science.

The great irony of such ignorance is that they don't realize this line only works with religious audiences, since people who actually understand science know that the only "blasphemy against science" that you can possibly commit is to accept something--anything-- science says because some scientist said it, without questioning it vehemently.

Science is literally the process of attacking any idea that can't be conclusively demonstrated by repeatable tests. And that those tests are pretty much by definition "blasphemy against" your ideas, when performed by people who want to tear down your ideas because they're in competition with you, as is most of the scientific community with one another.

What I don't get is how they don't see that their statement is the opposite of its definition, rendering it self-defeating, akin to saying "since Capitalists are communists...".

How does one go through life on such conflicting foundations for their ideas? I honestly can't grasp it.

If some people think of science as religion with less ornately clothed priests then all that crap about blasphemy makes sense. They may not necessarily know or care how science works so there is no contradiction - for them science is atheist substitute for religion.

Also a minor quibble - if "communism" is defined only in political terms like one party rule and rhetoric of class struggle then I guess capitalist can be communist.

The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.

(02-03-2017 08:18 PM)RocketSurgeon76 Wrote: The great irony of such ignorance is that they don't realize this line only works with religious audiences, since people who actually understand science know that the only "blasphemy against science" that you can possibly commit is to accept something--anything-- science says because some scientist said it, without questioning it vehemently.

Science is literally the process of attacking any idea that can't be conclusively demonstrated by repeatable tests. And that those tests are pretty much by definition "blasphemy against" your ideas, when performed by people who want to tear down your ideas because they're in competition with you, as is most of the scientific community with one another.

What I don't get is how they don't see that their statement is the opposite of its definition, rendering it self-defeating, akin to saying "since Capitalists are communists...".

How does one go through life on such conflicting foundations for their ideas? I honestly can't grasp it.

If some people think of science as religion with less ornately clothed priests then all that crap about blasphemy makes sense. They may not necessarily know or care how science works so there is no contradiction - for them science is atheist substitute for religion.

Also a minor quibble - if "communism" is defined only in political terms like one party rule and rhetoric of class struggle then I guess capitalist can be communist.

I see communism used very often in threads here and I constantly wonder if whoever uses it knows the difference between communism and Communism because there is a big difference between them.

Big C communism is, briefly, a political idea while little c communism relates to communal living. These definitions are a little short on actuality. In the 60's and early 70's (the hippy years but not limited to them) people sometimes lived communally sharing in reality (sometimes) much the way Big C Communism theory is supposed to work. So when I see communism I think one way and big C Communism I think another way.

Today is the best day of my life and tomorrow will be even better.
Robert himself

(03-03-2017 01:47 AM)Szuchow Wrote: If some people think of science as religion with less ornately clothed priests then all that crap about blasphemy makes sense. They may not necessarily know or care how science works so there is no contradiction - for them science is atheist substitute for religion.

Also a minor quibble - if "communism" is defined only in political terms like one party rule and rhetoric of class struggle then I guess capitalist can be communist.

I see communism used very often in threads here and I constantly wonder if whoever uses it knows the difference between communism and Communism because there is a big difference between them.

Merriam-Webster does not make distinction you do. Also wasn't living in such way called living in communes? That does not make one communist.

Quote:Big C communism is, briefly, a political idea while little c communism relates to communal living. These definitions are a little short on actuality. In the 60's and early 70's (the hippy years but not limited to them) people sometimes lived communally sharing in reality (sometimes) much the way Big C Communism theory is supposed to work. So when I see communism I think one way and big C Communism I think another way.

Big communism is a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably and society organized as one big fabric, where freedom withered away, but workers ended alienation and made the jump from realm of necessity to realm of freedom*; Communism is nothing more than utopia. Alternatively communism was used to describe Soviet bloc countries, of which not one claimed that it achieved Communism. [Andrzej Walicki, From the Communist Project to the Neoliberal Utopia].

So hippies lived in one big factory as Marx envisioned?

*Keep in mind that communist idea of freedom isn't the same as liberal one.

The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.

(14-03-2017 08:28 AM)Heath_Tierney Wrote: I've often seen communism and totalitarianism confused. But they're not the same thing.

Sure, for starters totalitarianism existed.

Quote:Communism is an economic doctrine. Totalitarianism is a political one.

Communism have some economic underpinning. But Raymond Aron in his The Opium of The Intellectuals put it better than I ever could:

Communism developed from an economic and political doctrine at a time when the spiritual vitality and the authority of the Churches were in decline. Passions which in other times might have expressed themselves in strictly religious beliefs were channelled into political action. Socialism appeared not so much a technique applicable to the management of enterprises or to the functioning of the economy, as a means of curing once and for all the age-old misery of mankind.[...]The Marxist prophetism, as we have seen, conforms to the typical pattern of the Judeo-Christian prophetism. Every prophetism condemns what is and sketches an outline of what should or will be; it chooses an individual or a group to cleave a path across the no-man’s land which separates the unworthy present from the radiant future. The classless society which will bring social progress without political revolution is comparable to the dreams of the millennium. The misery of the proletariat proves its vocation and the Communist Party becomes the Church which is opposed by the bourgeois/pagans who stop their ears against the good tidings and by the socialist/Jews who have failed to recognise the Revolution which they themselves had been heralding for years.

As for differences between totalitarianism and communism we can at best speak about differences between something that was and something that was only Marx vague thought; there can be no real comparison between the two as one did not even existed.

The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.